Story Time
by spaghetti.and.pain
Summary: James tells a delightful story on an important dinner date. Rated M for language, gambling, prostitution? Don't bother reading if you're not down for the overwhelming, unapologetic cockiness that only James P. can get away with.


"I had really never meant for us to end up _stuck_ in Vegas. Sure, I'd told them we were taking a Portkey to my gram's house in Suffolk, and I'd definitely spent a third of our group savings buying a Portkey that could take us the 8396 kilometres from London to Vegas, but I hadn't planned on _staying_ there.

But I guess intentions don't mean much when you're in a fistfight and an Elvis impersonator is shaking his hips at you and singing 'Love Me Tender.'

Let's back up a bit. This whole mess went back to just before we'd graduated from Hogwarts. We'd come up with a brilliant plan: a prank contest. Whoever pulled the best joke would get the title of Ultimate Prank King, and the other three would have to get 3-month temporary tattoos of the winner's name on their arses. Tramp stamp, I think it's called. It was a truly brilliant idea. Unsurprisingly, Lily hated it.

See, that's why I _had_ to win. She threatened to cut off sex for the whole three months if I ended up with a tattoo of anything on my arse, so of course I had to do something that was guaranteed to win without a doubt. Now, though, I had bigger issues to worry about.

So there we were, squished into a bathroom stall in a casino in Las fucking Vegas, Nevada in the US of A. On a side note, it had taken honest effort to find someone who could make me a Portkey specific enough to land us right here. If Worm's birthday weren't so damn late in the year, we all could've just Apparated. He wouldn't be 17 until September, though, and honestly none of us were good enough at Apparition to piggyback him. So to fix that problem I'd done hours of solid planning. Would any of the others even had the foresight to make sure we didn't come out in plain sight? I think not.

Anyway, I swung open the stall door and sauntered out, gesturing for the others to follow me. They all looked suspicious, or maybe just nauseous from the Portkey, as they exited the stall as well.

'Hey, Prongs,' Petey complained, 'this doesn't sound like Suffolk. There's loads of noise. And why'd you land us in here, could'a just used your granny's yard, couldn't you've?'

I just grinned and pulled back the bathroom door, revealing the outside world.

'Merlin's fucking beard,' Sirius muttered as I turned to each of them and handed them a wad of American Muggle cash and fake IDs that I had also managed to get, putting all of our ages at 21. For some reason Americans can vote at eighteen, but can't drink for three more years after that? Sounds illogical, but whatever. Thank my fantastic planning skills again for getting us in for a good time regardless.

'Who's ready to party?' I asked, laughing aloud at their shocked expressions.

Just to briefly set the scene, it's June of 1978. I'd picked Vegas because it was basically the global hub of fucking shit up with no consequences. Booze, gambling- hell, even call girls were still sort of legal there. It was the perfect place to go for a last hurrah before I started training as an Auror and the others started doing whatever they were going to do. Plus, they obviously never saw it coming, which made it even better for the prank war.

The casino was fucking HUGE, by the way. It was called The Aladdin, and it'd just opened up in '66. Hundreds of rooms, golf courses, neon signs everywhere. There's nothing remotely like this in England. (Hot girls were also everywhere, not like I noticed them. Eyes for Lily only.)

Remus was furious at me. As we walked around trying to figure out what we wanted to do for the few hours I'd set aside, he was going on and on and on about how stupid this was, how dumb it'd been to Portkey here, someone could've seen us, how are we getting back you daft whomper-

Okay. So maybe I hadn't thought this through all the way. I looked down at the pen I'd gotten enchanted as a Portkey, hoping somehow a second Portus charm would appear on it.

'Uh. Guys…'

Moony stared at me like I'd started shifting into my Animagus form. 'Don't say what I think you're about to say. PLEASE don't say that you only got a one-charm Portkey.'

I'm pretty sure that's exactly what I'd done, but if he didn't want me to say it, I wouldn't?

'James?' Sirius pressed, clutching his fake ID so hard his fingers were turning purple.

'Er, well, I think. We might be stuck in Vegas. Possibly.'

Remus went white. His anxiety must have been sky high, but I really didn't have time to deal with that because Padfoot launched himself at me.

'YOU DODGY LITTLE BASTARD,' he yelled at me as he got me in a chokehold I still don't think I deserved. 'I HAD A DATE WITH EMMA VANITY TONIGHT, YOU SAID WE'D BE BACK BY SIX O'CLOCK.'

I couldn't breathe, so I kicked him in the balls. Remus rallied his wits and tried to mediate, but Padfoot clocked him upside the head trying to get at me. Remus turned bright red and punched him in the stomach. I pushed Moony away from us. He reeled back and slapped me. Worm just looked alarmed and started blurting out random cheers of 'Yea James!' 'Go Sirius!' and 'Get 'em, Remus!'

A drunk, rather tubby Elvis impersonator, probably assuming we were also drunk, swayed over to us and started slurring what sounded like the choruses of the entire Elvis discography. Other Muggles didn't seem fazed by what was happening. Was this normal in America?

Things went on like this for maybe seven minutes before the Elvis impersonator stopped singing, lurched toward us, grabbed Padfoot and me by the ears and dragged us over to an alcove under a stairwell. Remus and Petey followed close behind.

'What the fuck is wrong with you jackasses?' he drawled, faltering on his feet a bit. 'Did you even see the sign when you came in here? Folks like you need help, one of us'll come over and sing the choruses to Love Me Tender, Hound Dog, and Can't Help Fallin' In Love. In that order. You deaf?'

Sirius and I exchanged a long look before directing our attention back to him. I took the lead, obviously. I'm the most well-mannered.

'You see, sir, we didn't come in through an entrance with a sign on it.' I spoke slowly and calmly, like you're supposed to do with an angry dog. I did my research on how to interact with Americans before we came here.

He leaned in a bit closer. I leaned away. I don't know what booze was leaking out of his pores, but it smelled cheap. 'Don't fuck around with me. I ain't a no-maj. I know other magic folk when I see 'em. What're you, straight outta Hogwarts?'

'Um. Sort of. We just graduated,' I stammered. 'Uh, a couple years ago, I mean' as I remembered our fake IDs. Fuck, I was losing my ground as the alpha. I had to reinstate my authority. Maybe I should've let Padfoot take care of this whole dog thing.

'Hmph. Eddie.' He extends his hand to me.

'...James.' I grasped and shook it. 'These are Sirius, Remus, and Peter. We took a Portkey into the bathroom. There was no sign. I'm sorry.'

'Your singing really was lovely, honestly. I'm quite a fan of Hound Dog,' Sirius offered with a straight face.

Eddie ignored that. 'Y'all here without going through customs? No check-in, no license to practice magic, nothing?' he asked. He looked unsurprised when we all nodded, and he pulled something bronze out of his shirt pocket. 'Here's what we're gonna do. This Twister is charmed to take you wherever you last were before you came here. It'll spin you off one hour after I set it.'

He gave the top of the object a pull and a small pin came out of it, like it was a grenade or something. The inside started spinning very slowly. It looked like an hourglass, except the inside looked like clouds instead of sand. Eddie handed me the Twister, took his wand out of the same pocket, and used it to draw a thin blue line connecting all of us to the body of the gadget, which I assumed was done to make sure it took all of us back.

'Spend money. Lose at gambling, get drunk, enjoy food. It's all revenue. Try not to land flat on your feet when you get back home. Aladdin Casino and the United States government are not to be held liable for any personal or property damages that may be sustained through use of the Twister. Enjoy your stay. Viva Las Vegas!' he recited off of a pamphlet in his other hand. He gave us a weak smile before wobbling back over to his post by a large marble fountain and started singing 'Always on My Mind.'

Padfoot, Wormy, Moony, and I spent that whole hour drinking margaritas and eating these fabulous things called circus peanuts. They're incredible. I should've brought some back to England with me. And when time was up, the Twister started spinning so fast, you wouldn't have believed it. Had this bright blue light around it. Before we knew it we were back in my living room in London!"

James finished his story and grinned expectantly at his audience. Lily had her head in her hands and seemed to be shaking slightly. Vernon's face was beet red. Petunia's left eye was twitching.

A waiter came over. "Anything to drink, ladies, gentlemen?"

Lily lifted her head and stared miserably at the ceiling. "Please just bring the cheque."


End file.
